Death in the Family

Dimma (my maternal grandma) died around 5.10 pm on Sunday morning. Ma called me up early in the morning. Having received news that Dimma had lapsed into a coma, she said she'd be leaving within a couple of hours for Panagarh (of the military base fame) where Dimma had been staying with my mejomashi (my middle aunt) for the last few years. Because of my back problem , I needn't go over and stay at Salt Lake. My parents-in-law were away in North Bengal, so I couldn't have shirked my responsibilities here in any case. All I needed to do was check from time to time whether everything was ok with Mitu (my sibling) since Ma doesn't have much faith in my father's sense of responsibility when it comes to family (he's a doctor, so you get the drift). She said she didn't expect Dimma to live beyond that day or at the most, the day after. I called her again around 2 pm, and she said that she'd just reached mashi's place. Dimma, too weak and physically incapacitated, couldn't possibly be removed to a hospital, so a doctor had been called over. Other relatives had come over and there was a tangible sense of impending gloom. I said I'd check on her again later, in that case.

We were supposed to go over that evening to Salt Lake to my parents' place. Baba was attending a seminar at the Hyatt and there was a cocktail dinner at the Rowing Club to round it off that night. Mitu would probably not feel like attending the event if we guys weren't around, so I persuaded K, explaining the logic . (We had had Rashi and Saugata sleeping over the previous night and had had a whole lot of rich food in this sultry weather, so he didn't really feel like partaking of some more of the former at the invitation in question.) We had just taken a nap and I was sitting on the bed, contemplating whether to make tea first or decide what to wear when Ma called.

Some intuition told me that Ma's calling at that particular point of time did not augur good news. I remember K's puzzled look when I kept on staring at the mobile screen and then turning to him and telling him in a lame, lost way that it was Ma calling. Eventually, I must have answered the call for I could distinctly hear Ma's voice sounding strangely and unnaturally clear, telling me that Dimma had 'just' passed away. Her matter-of-fact voice injected stupor into me, for I can't remember anything of what she told me after that. There was already wetness on my cheeks and along the sides of my nose and somehow, in between all of this, I was lying down, turning my face away from K because I was conscious of this being a moment of personal loss, something he could not possibly understand, empathise or sympathise with. It was something that was intensely personal, a bereavement that would mean different things to different people but somehow, none of our emotions would be the same. There would always be a difference, because I was mourning at the shrine of my own personal existence, grieving for one whose birth had inevitably predestined mine. I was reliving family, blood ties, shared memories. Somehow, in those few moments, I felt like Ma was no longer just a mother, I was no longer just her daughter. We had been promoted by an entire generation.

But we could have done without it.

Dimma, I'll miss not having you around. Memories are not a very good substitute for the physical presence of a person, are they ?

APOCALYPTICA

This poem was influenced by the film 'The Seventh Sign'. It's sombre and stark, something in the line of Eliot's 'The Wasteland' (dare I be so presumptious ?!) and my own nightmarish take on the world as it is now. I'd like to preface it with the following words by my favourite writer :

"But one is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing ; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one ! War, I think, has had its time and place; when, unless you were warlike, you would not live to perpetuate your species - you would die out. To be meek, to be gentle, to give in easily, would spell disaster ; war was a necessity then, because either you or the others would perish. Like a bird or animal, you had to fight for your territory.War brought you slaves, land, food ,women -the things you needed to survive. But now we have got to learn to avoid war, not because of our nicer natures or our dislike of hurting others, but because war is not profitable, we shall not survive war, but shall, as well as our adversaries, be destroyed by war. The time of the tigers is over ; now, no doubt, we shall have the time of the rogues and the charlatans, of the thieves, the robbers and pickpockets ; but that is better - it is a stage on the upward way."

(Agatha Christie, An Autobiography)

END-GAME

You know it’s judgement day
When sober clouds slip-sweep away,
Sweet passion holds lusty sway,
And conscience calmly gives way.

It’s time I rose to power :
Subjected fate to yield or die ;
Hammered people into puppets
To accept what truth I lie.

Many shall not simply survive ;
Evolution dreads a sharp nosedive ;
It’s not about staying alive :
I need to conquer to thrill, to thrive.

We all cannot be right,
To be right, you must fight ;
The loser’s soon out of sight…
Co-existence is God’s great blight.

Emerge then, armed with life,
Let us play the game of strife,
Throw dices for the knife,
Smoke out the Queen in the hive.

Pairs always wreak havoc,
Marriage puts love on the block ;
Friends stay alive and mock,
I’d best sail single to dock.

Peace would make the world run amok,
And yes,
Truce is simply deadlock.


--- GARGI MANDAL-MUKHERJEE

Photograph/poster : courtesy Carlos Latuff

FOR BRINDAS, EVERYWHERE :

This poem was composed in a fit of inspiration last night after watching 'Antaheen' ; it voices the unspoken thoughts of Avik (Rahul Bose's character) towards the 'end' of the film. I do not like the word 'end' as it seems to blight the vision of the film that its name serves to convey so faithfully...but for lack of a more apt word, I surrender.

Please do give me your feedback, it matters.

REQUIEM

I cry for the tears you never shed
I mourn those letters you never read
For now, alas, I am but a life unled
For you, I am emotion unsaid, unbled.

There were tunnels where I dared not read your eyes,
Remorse, that shared, would not be wise,
Silences I feared to tread on, believing lies,
Words hard and hateful, but no goodbyes.

And now, I stare into a vast unknown…
Treading tortuous, tortured lanes, all alone ;
Reliving moments love might have sown
Mourning the stranger whom I have always known.


------ GARGI MANDAL-MUKHERJEE

18-07-2009

Before I leave...

Yesterday we completed watching the last instalment of Dasvidaniya. I have been thinking ever since about my wish list. So many things that I should have to do in order to settle my accounts in case I need to leave before time. I certainly won't be able to limit my list to a mere 10 things, unlike Amar Kaul. So many debts to own up to, so many apologies to acknowledge, so many moments to rewind to and re-create. To learn Spanish. To learn salsa. To publish an anthology. To become a Rabindrasangeet singer. To complete reading the entire Agatha Christie collection. To have a child of my own. To resolve my parents' conflicts forever. To listen to all the secret sorrows Mitu (my sibling) has been piling up against the world and would only care to share with me. To take my mother on a long holiday to some beach. To confess to Baba the tears I've secretly shed every time I've argued with him. To tell Brinda, Sanjukta, Sohini, Sharmistha, Shobhana, Indranil, Rashi, Pooja, Tua, Ayantika, Shonali, Swarnadeep, Nilanjana, Debarati, Barnali and Moumita how they have all somehow contributed to making me a better person. To tell Bubun/Angshuman (my cousin) what a difference his mere presence or absence can make in my life. To tell K what he means to me. To just let life know how much I enjoyed the warmth of its embrace.

I think I'd better get down to it before it's too late.

Shopping and Ethics

Backlogs scare me, especially as they are second nature to me when it comes to things which I'm passionate about and yet have managed to neglect completing. I keep on coming up with all these silly defences, like one needs distance to gain perspective, in the spirit of Wordsworth's 'emotions recollected in tranquility'. Unfortunately, too much of tranquility doesn't seem to leave me with any emotion at all. LOL.

We watched 'Quantum of Solace' last Saturday and I must admit, it was definitely more than a mere quantum of solace on a very rainy Saturday, when the only other consolations were a lunch consisting of paneer paratha (yippee) and my latest creation, a chicken korma (well, it was described as a 'mild chicken korma' in the net recipe, but I don't think that sounds very gastronomically tantalising, so I'd leave the mildness out) besides a round of shopping at Walmart, seeking a gift for a not-even-a-month old baby (Siddhant, of course).

Shopping first, I think. Apart from bread and desserts (which I'm perpetually mystified as to how we manage to consume so much so fast), there were two important things on our mind this time, trackpants for K (thanks to our extreme show of torpor which explains the monthly visit to the laundry) and a befitting present for baby Sid, my latest preoccupation (I so need a child of my own). The first was hard enough to locate since we wanted low prices and tasteful designs (in a trackpant?...I know, I know...but...er...that's so me) and flannel, so it took quite a bit of time. Turns out that buying gifts for children is a challenge. I mean, you have to know exactly what you want, otherwise there's too much variety out there for the not-so-ingenious (and the not-so-patient, by which I defintely mean K) to get anything at all at the end of the day...er...search. I don't recall so many options when we were children ourselves. Well ok, that was some twenty odd years back but children still are children aren't they? How much change could they possibly have undergone in just two decades.

A hell of a lot, it seems. My jaws dropped at the sight of the huge space and several aisles that were devoted to children at the W. Toys, games, board games, books, cards, dolls, rides, gadgets, musical paraphernalia...wow. K seemed literally dumbfounded (not that it's hard to say that about him on most occasions) and was all in favour of coming back another day, especially since Moumita called to say they were running late and to ask whether it would be possible for us to get the movie tickets. I voiced a vehement no.I don't think I could have taken the trouble of patiently exploring each and every single one of all those aisles and after that, lived to face an empty-handed me. Well, you may naturally ask, since there were so many options, what was the problem. Aha. That was the problem. Too many choices and two clueless adults. There seemed to be so much for children but not much for babies (obviously it had to be that way, since that was what we were looking for in particular). And certainly not for babies less than 6 months old. Hello? What are they supposed to be, non-human? I suppose the manufacturers think that the only things that would suit them are clothes and adult-chosen toys. Don't even ask what we ultimately bought. (It's a surprise in any case for the Baby, so hold your breath till post-Thanksgiving,will you ?) Just a hint. Something that K seems to want to be allowed to play with, too. I know I would so love the expressions on your faces if I could see them !

Now for 'James Bond'. I know that that's not really the name of the movie, but several people at the Reading Cinemas ticket counter seemed happy to think of it that way. Fortunately, the tickets were not very expensive. That would have triggered on dollops of guilt in me, I being the half of the Mukherjees that was extra-hyper about watching the film on the big screen. Well, it was definitely worth the hype (and the 400 odd rupees spent respectively). I am totally converted to Craigomania and over Brosnan (who looked a tad too flirtatious, I always thought). Olga whatever was a great performer too. I loved the action sequences especially the airborne one and the initial chase. The opening song was slightly misleading, I thought. It looked like Bond was going to be The Man in a film where all the heroes, villains etc consisted of solely women and the action sequences were all likely to take place in bed. And the principal issue, the question of the ethics of revenge, made me very happy. It called back memories of all the ecstatic hours I'd spent in JUDE days, contemplating Hamlet. For the forgetful many, I reproduce the classic soliloquy :

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.


(Act III, Scene 1)

Of course, it always seems to be easier to preach than to practise. But with time and determination, I have learned not to hold malice.I am not saying I forget, I only forgive. And the most important thing here is to remember that revenge destroys you as much as it would the potential victim. It's not important who started it all. It's so much more meaningful to be the magnanimous one who learns a lesson from the past and simply moves on. And lets go. You must exorcise your own demons at the end of the day. For as Hamlet saw it, murdering the murderer would be akin to stooping to the murderer's own level. Therefore, he simply could not initiate action until Laertes had dealt him the death blow. Being attacked, he could retaliate, knowing that Laertes and he forgave each other even as they died. But Claudius' death does remain controversial as the question of ethics still hold. A modern day Hamlet, Bond works at the Freudian cure, reliving his past and thus overcoming it. I'm glad I did watch the film. I'd been going through a traumatic experience myself and it kind of purged me of my hurt. I'm no longer in rewind mode.

K says I think too much. On this occasion, I think he would be glad I did since the results are so positive in nature. As for the person who tried to hurt me, his/her dwelling on the past while I live in the present is ample punishment. What say you?

Btw, here you will find a simple and sensible essay on the theme of revenge in Hamlet, for those interested.

After a horrifyingly long hiatus..

DEATH

Leave me no more room to love
Let you be all that I must ever have
As material to live with you on and on
Stumbling in the depths of the mind horizon
Gathering shelter in the memory of your charms
Seeking sustenance in the warmth of your arms
Knowing that we shall never belong
To others, to existences shadowy lifelong…

Since you are gone, never to appear before eyes
And these days must seem like dark nightmare lies
My cries bewilder those that haunt the earth
Who beguile me to more marriage and mirth
Trusting in tragic time to forget and heal
Mocking the power of the wedding seal,
The flaming red that knows you live on in me
That we always believed in what is destiny…

If there are no smiles, it is because I laugh
Glowing in the halo of my once better half
If there is no music, it is your echoing voice
That leaves me enough cause to rejoice,
Ringing in my ears, singing out my woe
Easing the course of the tears that flow…

Battling the burden of the rest of my role
Dancing lightly in the locus of the soul
Rendering moments, monuments, emotions whole
Filling up what morbid dust might expose a hole.


GARGI MANDAL-MUKHERJEE
25-09-2008